2017 Jaguar XE

WHAT WE LIKE: When cars fix themselves. Remember the noises we kept hearing from under the Jaguar’s hood, detailed in our last update? We’re not hearing them anymore. Various staffers had thought they might be coming from the supercharger, or something rattling around in the intake manifold, or maybe a pulley bearing. In our last update, the dealer replaced a pulley and both fuel pumps, and yet the gravelly noise didn’t disappear. Well, at least not right away. Because here we are, thousands of miles and months later and either we’ve developed Stockholm syndrome or the car isn’t sounding so defective now. There’s still a fair bit of supercharger whine, and you’d never confuse the XE’s intake sound with that of a Lexus—or a Porsche, for that matter—but it doesn’t sound like anything is amiss. Maybe now those of us who really like driving the XE can convince the ones who have been avoiding the car to give it another chance.

WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: Pirelli P Zeros—at least not on this car. Let’s count how many of these 20-inch tires we’ve destroyed: The first came right out of the box, when we bubbled a sidewall on the right front shortly after the XE’s arrival at our offices. Then we had the same thing happen not long after. Then in May we hit a pothole in a construction zone that flattened the right front, ripping open the sidewall, while also bubbling the right rear. One month later, both right-side tires went down again, victimized by some railroad tracks. So that’s six. Add to that the single 19-inch Sottozero winter tire that was damaged by a pothole in March and it makes seven. Lucky us.

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WHAT WENT WRONG: Other than all the flat tires, the XE has not given us much trouble. We had our 16,000-mile service (oil change, pollen-filter replacement, track-rod ends retorqued) performed gratis, thanks to Jag’s complimentary scheduled-maintenance policy. Our satellite-radio subscription has been restored, which we were thankfully able to do ourselves without going to the dealer. But the infotainment system has also continued its strange behavior. One day, out of the blue, it displayed this message over the map: “Petrol stations are near.” It seemed like the car was deploying some Google Assistant–like technology to help the driver find a place to refuel, except that the car already had a full tank.

WHERE WE WENT: Not enough places. The XE’s smallish back seat makes it more suited to commuting than to road-tripping. Plus, those annoying underhood noises and the Jag’s propensity to annihilate its own tires have limited our desire to take the XE on any long excursions. So it has seen northern Michigan a few times and southern Wisconsin once but hasn’t made it any farther afield than Kentucky.

Longtime Car and Driver readers might remember a succession of long-term Jaguars, four of them through the 2000s, that did little to dispel the stereotype of unreliable British cars. The last of these Jags born from the Ford-ownership era to finish its tour of duty was a 2009 XF Supercharged sedan. Its long-term wrap story began with a Seinfeldian inquiry: “What is it with Jaguar and electronics?”

When we next took delivery of a long-term Jag, half a decade had passed, enough time for new owners Tata Motors to develop its first model from the ground up. That 2014 F-type proved relatively reliable but was not without its own problems, including an infotainment system that locked up and required rebooting so often we could only presume it was running on Windows ME. But we’re suckers for a pretty face (and 495 horsepower), so the orange roadster left Eisenhower Place after 40,000 miles with a letter of recommendation and an invitation for Jaguar to send us its next creation.

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Enter the XE

That would be the XE, which, along with the redesigned XF, rides on a new modular aluminum-intensive platform called iQ. A small entry-luxury sedan, the XE promises to be the most accessible Jaguar in a decade, with the base 240-hp model starting at under $36,000. Profligate spenders of other people’s money that we are, we chose a much more expensive XE, passing on the entry-level turbo four-cylinder in favor of the supercharged V-6. While you can get into the six-cylinder for as little as $42,695, we wanted all-wheel drive ($2500) and all those sporty exterior bits that define the $7500 R-Sport trim. Running up the price of our long-termer with $6650 of further options brought the as-tested total to $59,345.

Paramount in our minds during the months to come will be the usual two questions that accompany every new Jag: Does it deliver on the marque’s sporting promise? And what sorts of electronic bedevilment will we have to cope with for 40,000 miles?

We’re off to a promising start on the former, but the XE’s InControl Touch Pro infotainment system already is proving reliably unreliable. We chose the $2700 Technology package primarily to get the 10.2-inch widescreen display, but it seems to have even more propensity to freeze than did the old infotainment unit in our F-type. Multiple editors have experienced the problem from almost the moment the car came off the hauler, so we’ll be mentioning that on our first service visit. That could be imminent, as we’ve already experienced a check-engine warning light, although it extinguished itself after a few key cycles and a bit of driving.

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Drives Like a Jag

Ah yes, the driving. That has been spectacular. Jaguar Land Rover’s corporate 3.0-liter V-6 is a familiar friend, providing 340 supercharged horsepower in the XE. Driving all four wheels, it shot our XE through the quarter-mile in just 13.4 seconds. With the Jag’s drive-mode selector in Dynamic, throttle response is immediate and the engine whips through its rev range, with the eight-speed automatic cracking off shifts just as quickly as you can flip the flimsy plastic shift paddles.

We opted to add $1000 for the 20-inch “Propeller” wheels wearing staggered Pirelli P Zero summer tires, size 235/35ZR-20 in the front and 265/30ZR-20 in the rear. Those short sidewalls are already losing their battle with our medieval Midwestern roads, as just weeks into our test we had to replace a front tire that developed a bubbled sidewall. But the big Pirellis were good enough to pull 0.93 g on the skidpad, as well as haul the XE to a stop from 70 mph in 147 feet. That’s a good number for a sports sedan, especially considering the XE’s portly, 4036-pound curb weight, 52.0 percent of which sits on its front axle. Prior to hitting the track, we could tell how grippy our XE is by the scrubbing from its front tires that we could feel through the steering wheel during tight-radius parking maneuvers.

On the street, the steering has excellent feel and weight, with none of the overboosted vagueness that plagued past Jaguars. The XE’s suspension is firm yet compliant enough for long-haul mileage. It’s the R-Sport’s standard sport seats that so far have proved to be the impetus for calling it a day and looking for a Hampton Inn, with their flatness, poor lumbar support, and meager side bolstering. The front thrones are both heated and cooled, thanks to our decision to drop $2100 on the Comfort & Convenience package, which also provides heated seats for the rear passengers, a power rear sunshade, and a power trunklid.

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Toasty hindquarters are a nice bone to throw at rear-seat riders, given the tightness of their accommodations. At least two editors already have managed to knock their heads against the low roof opening while getting into the back seat. When so dazed, the dull interior is less disappointing, but really we have only ourselves to blame for not ordering one of the livelier two-tone leather combinations. We did opt for the Satin Burl Ash Veneer trim ($300), but it does little to spruce up the cabin, as this nice wood all but disappears amid the vast blackness of the dashboard. Our XE is far prettier on the outside, where its metallic British Racing Green paint ($550) looks undeniably classic.

We have a lot of driving to do before we decide whether the XE becomes a classic itself—or perhaps just slinks off with a malfunctioning tail between its legs, another one-and-done model like last decade’s X-type­. Initial impressions say that the XE is capable of staking a legitimate claim for Jaguar in an ever-expanding segment. The XE is one of two newcomers this year (the other being the Alfa Romeo Giulia), meaning the established players in the segment—primarily the Audi A4, BMW 3-series, and Mercedes-Benz C-class, plus the Cadillac ATS, Infiniti Q50, and Lexus IS­­—have never had so much competition.

WHAT WE LIKE: Driving the XE is always a pleasurable experience. The steering has earned praise for its feedback, and the car feels balanced and agile. Its Dynamic driving mode is truly dynamic: “It’s almost like a completely different car,” wrote one driver enamored with the Jag’s instant throttle response. The car puts down the power well, with an all-wheel-drive system that is calibrated to do more than just deploy the extra set of driven wheels as a safety measure once traction starts to go away. Of course the AWD system also works well in the snow and ice, and with the 19-inch Pirelli Sottozero winter tires we fitted in November, assisted by the Jag’s dedicated Rain/Ice/Snow mode, the XE has proved tanklike. Most of the staff is into the look of the black Venom wheels against the British Racing Green body color, and the understated design is appealing, especially when the XE is parked next to a more extroverted machine, such as a new Lexus.

WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: The buggy infotainment system plagued the car for months before we were able to get the unit replaced and the software upgraded under warranty. Even afterward, it takes forever to boot up, and we have experienced intermittent crashes. We mentioned that it’s winter here, but did we explain that the seat-heater controls are accessible only through the center touchscreen? The rest of the dash also leaves us cold (figuratively), as there’s too much plastic for a luxury-car interior. And then there are the sounds, all manner of whirring racket coming from under the hood, like an industrial meat slicer that has gone out of balance. Rev the supercharged V-6 to 6800 rpm and you’ll be happy the fuel cuts off, rescuing your ears from the vibrational noise.

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WHAT WENT WRONG: The aforementioned noise issue led us to visit the dealership three times. The first time we were told it was a bad idler pulley, but we had to come back to have a new one installed. At least we got some other recall work done during the four days it was at service, including replacing a hose to the fuel-vapor canister and updating the software for the powertrain control module. After the second trip and a replacement pulley, the engine still didn’t sound right. Another trip to the service bay found bad fuel pumps that took nearly two weeks to replace—and then when we picked up the car it sounded the same. The dealer wrenches told us they had driven our car back-to-back with an identical one, so we were left with the clichéd explanation that “they all do that.” Meanwhile, our infotainment-system repair was back-burnered. It finally got addressed in a separate visit to a different dealer, which took three days to complete because the techs were unable to update the software. They eventually replaced the entire infotainment unit before returning the car “fixed.” Now our satellite radio does not work, as apparently the trial subscription was not transferred.

WHERE WE WENT: Other than the dealer? Just Ohio, which is even more miserable and also likely to drain your wallet.